Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier eBook

[1] The rahur is a kind of pea, growing not
unlike our English broom
in appearance; it is sown
with the maize crop during the rains,
and garnered in the cold weather.
It produces a small pea, which
is largely used by the natives,
and forms the nutritive article of
diet known as dhall.

CHAPTER II.

My first charge.—­How we get our lands.—­Our home farm.—­System of
farming.—­Collection of rents.—­The planter’s duties.

My first charge was a small outwork of the large factory
Seeraha. It was called Puttihee. There was
no bungalow; that is, there was no regular house for
the assistant, but a little one-roomed hut, built on
the top of the indigo vats, served me for a residence.
It had neither doors nor windows, and the rain used
to beat through the room, while the eaves were inhabited
by countless swarms of bats, who, in the evening flashed
backwards and forwards in ghostly rapid flight, and
were a most intolerable nuisance. To give some
idea of the duties of an indigo assistant, I must
explain the system on which we get our lands, and
how we grow our crop.

Water of course being a sine qua non, the first
object in selecting a site for a factory is, to have
water in plenty contiguous to the proposed buildings.
Consequently Puttihee was built on the banks of a
very pretty lake, shaped like a horseshoe, and covered
with water lilies and broad-leaved green aquatic plants.
The lake was kept by the native proprietor as a fish
preserve, and literally teemed with fish of all sorts,
shapes, and sizes. I had not been long at Puttihee
before I had erected a staging, leading out into deep
water, and many a happy hour I have spent there with
my three or four rods out, pulling in the finny inhabitants.

Having got water and a site, the next thing is to
get land on which to grow your crop. By purchase,
by getting a long lease, or otherwise, you become
possessed of several hundred acres of the land immediately
surrounding the factory. Of course some factories
will have more and some less as circumstances happen.
This land, however, is peculiarly factory property.
It is in fact a sort of home farm, and goes by the
name of Zeraat. It is ploughed by factory
bullocks, worked by factory coolies, and is altogether
apart and separate from the ordinary lands held by
the ryots and worked by them. (A ryot means a cultivator.)
In most factories the Zeraats are farmed in the most
thorough manner. Many now use the light Howard’s
plough, and apply quantities of manure.

The fields extend in vast unbroken plains all round
the factory. The land is worked and pulverised,
and reploughed, and harrowed, and cleaned, till not
a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg is to be seen.
If necessary, it is carefully weeded several times
before the crop is sown, and in fact, a fine clean
stretch of Zeraat in Tirhoot or Chumparun, will compare
most favourably with any field in the highest farming
districts of England or Scotland. The ploughing
and other farm labour is done by bullocks. A
staff of these, varying of course with the amount
of land under cultivation, is kept at each factory.
For their support a certain amount of sugar-cane is
planted, and in the cold weather carrots are sown,
and gennara, a kind of millet, and maize.